


Heavy Boots

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, hotel roofs and references behold, it's three goddamn AM, slight assumed-canon characterization divergence but who cares right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m not supposed to be here. The staff of the Marriott would murder me if they found out I was up here. No guests allowed- ha ha ha. They should have really thought that over before making the door so easy to get through, for making the staircase have no security cameras, for not locking the hub at the top of the building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Boots

**Author's Note:**

> edit august 19 2014: 
> 
> Every once in a while, this little thing I wrote gets a surge in hits. I'm not quite sure why. It's a little weird, a little loopy; it's not the greatest thing I've ever written, as you can probably tell from the imbalance between hits and bookmarks. Read it if you'd like, it'll only take a minute or two. I have other, longer, better stories up on my account if you would like to check those out as well.
> 
> edit october 7 2014: 
> 
> so as we are nearing the one year anniversary of me putting up this fic, it has hit 10,000 views, which is really crazy considering that before i entered the snk fandom, the most hits a fic of mine had gotten was 5000 over the course of four years. so thank you all for reading, even if you didn't like it. it's just really amazing to me how quickly this thing gets hits. enjoy.

**Born under a bad sign**

**You saved my life**

**That night on the roof of your hotel**

It’s strange, I think. It’s strange how I feel like I’m supposed to love you, like I have to, even though I only want to love you for my own sake. Like I have to love you, even though I don’t want to _have to_ , I just _want_ to. 

It’s like I’m _supposed_ to love you, right? Then why am I here? Why do I feel the way I do? 

I’m not supposed to be here. The staff of the Marriott would murder me if they found out I was up here. No guests allowed- ha ha ha. They should have really thought that over before making the door so easy to get through, for making the staircase have no security cameras, for not locking the hub at the top of the building.

Why are we here? We’re here… Because… Right. We’re here because my heater broke, and you didn’t want to go back to your place because _hello, obnoxious roommates Hanji and Erwin_ , and he wanted some place that was nicer. He wouldn’t have been able to stand the Four Seasons five minutes away; no, the four-star hotel was the only one within a half hour’s drive that met his expectations.

Then why am I up here, in the dead of winter, staring down at the cars littering the streets? Why am I here, hoping that a god exists, one that could maybe spare me the pain?

To feed into the masculine guise, I hadn’t gotten help. No, no help, none for me. I had been told to by everyone, _oh, Eren, please get help, we can’t bear to see you like this-_ but what if I myself couldn’t bear to see myself like this? What if I myself am pissed off at what I myself am feeling? I, myself. Myself, I. The world, is. A terrible, place. Indeed.

It’s in the dead of winter, in the middle of the night, on the roof of the fucking Marriott that I am reminded of my mother. Her words, her face, her essence, all taken away by a sickness. I wish it would be that easy for me.

Well, it was obviously expected that her one and only biological child would develop something, wasn’t it? Something. Just something, they didn’t know what but they knew it would be something. Well here it is. Here it has been for the past five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven years maybe. Maybe longer, maybe less, who fucking knows when it developed and who fucking cares when it escalated?

And they thought. Oh, they thought. They thought that when I met him, everything would be cured, just like the manic pixie trope I seem to convey, right? That I’m fucked up, and quirky, and I will be fixed by some guy who feels human emotion? No. The human condition is not something that is miraculously fixed by another’s emotion, now is it.

The wind is howling, and fuck, I feel like howling myself. I am strangled, breath coming out in quick gasps, tears feeling like icicles against my cheeks, and I am forced to take infant steps towards the edge, god, Eren, stop being a pussy.

And it’s then that I feel the vibration in my pockets, and it’s then that I hear the chimes of the stupid song that we love play, and it’s then that I ignore it and let it go to voicemail.

One, two, three, four, five. Stop. Look out at the city and think. I know he will miss me, but it’s not like we’ve been together that long. Six months is not a long time in the grand scheme of things, is it? He’s a successful man- more successful at 26 than I could ever dare to be in my measly 21 years, and I know I’ll never have a chance to see my failures because I want to do this, right? I do, I do, I do. I do. I will.

Creak. Footsteps, a faint huff of air and patter of feet against concrete, and my knees sink and I sink along with them.

“Eren?”

God, is it god, did I go through with it?

“EREN!”

Not god. Alright. Well. Shit.

“Eren, what… What were you doing? You could have fallen, fuck, get-“

“What if I wanted to fall?”

And my voice surprises me. So incredibly stoic despite the salt that flowed down my face, despite the crunching tightness in my chest, despite the pressure pushing against my skull.

“Levi, what if I wanted to fall? What if I still want to fall? What are you gonna do about it?”

“Eren…”

And it’s then that I turn to look at him, hair disheveled and skin pale, not with the cold but naturally. And his eyebrows knit together, and they’re so thin, and his eyes narrow, and they’re so black, and I would have gotten lost in them if that were actually possible.

“Eren, I knew that something was wrong, but… You have to talk to me if you feel like this ever. Please?” His voice is needy. I like that.

“Do you know what it’s like to feel hopeless?”

“Of course I do, Eren.”

“But do you?”

Warm arms encircle my waist and I hear muffled crying, a half shaved head leaning on my shoulder, and I have heavy boots on, I know it, but he just sits there.

“I said, of course I do. Of course I fucking do. Don’t you dare try and make it like you’re the only one who’s felt like this.”

And he lifts his head up, and his eyes are red, red, red. And he wipes his eyes, and then he wipes my eyes, those blasted wells, and he smiles. A close-mouthed thing, a shifting of muscles, but something he does so rarely that it catches me by surprise nonetheless.

Of course he has.

I am the dumb one in this situation, aren’t I.

“We had to bury my parents when I was 15. What happened, the coroners said, what happened was that they died on impact. I don’t believe that for a second. Maybe they wanted to spare my emotions because I was still a teenager, maybe he was a sadistic fuck, who knows? But I know what it’s like.”

And all I can do is nod.

And he wipes my eyes again. “You need to move in with me, I think. And if you ever wake up thinking, _fuck, I need to kill myself-_ I’ll be there to help you, right? And you need to see someone other than me to help you.”

“Why, though?” Ah, there it is. A crack, something to remind me that I am still human.

“Because I love you.”

And it’s simple, really. Four words.

And I think, _shit._ And I think, _I am perpetuating a trope._

And I think, _I really don’t care._

Because my boyfriend has successfully talked me out of doing something that I might have regretted in some form of an afterlife. And he has talked me out of putting shame in the face of a god, if there is one.

“Come on,” he says, and he stand up and then grabs my hand. And all I can do is stare before allowing myself to be hoisted up and grabbed into a tight embrace. “I love you,” he says into my shoulder again. “Don’t do that again, you stupid shit, you scared the fuck out of me when I woke up to piss.”

“I…”

“Will you promise me one thing?”

He looks up at me, eyes burning red and glistening with words that have yet to be spilled over his waterlines.

“Yes?”

“Talk to someone, and if you ever feel like jumping off of a roof, make sure to tell me first.”

“OK.”

“Promise?”

“I swear.”

My hair is ruffled, he lowers from being on his toes and smiles again, tears falling before he wipes them away from his hollow cheeks. “Will you move in with me? My heating won’t break.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll get your stuff in the morning, then.”

And he grabs my hand and leads us back towards our room, through the hub and down the illegal stairs, feet pattering on the carpets of the hallways.

And all I can think is, _good._

_Good._

**Author's Note:**

> it's 3 AM and i'm tired and i should have been working on my King Lear essay but i wanted to get something out because i fucking appreciate you all so much. also i wanted to work with a more experimental style of writing and this came to be i guess. it took maybe two hours to write including breaks, i think. 
> 
> the bolded part at the beginning are lyrics from the song GINASFS by Fall Out Boy who have been fuel for me multiple times in life. the title is a reference to Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close which you should all read because it's amazing and holy shit just read it.
> 
> the fic that i'm working on right now won't be out for a while, but it's an ereri band/makeup artist AU so look forward to that i guess.
> 
> going to bed nighty night don't let the titans bite you in half.
> 
> EDIT: I have two tumblrs that you can feel free to follow. [darien-shieldz](http://www.darien-shieldz.tumblr.com) is my main account, and [shaunikari420](http://www.shaunikari420.tumblr.com) is my writing account, which is where you can find new fics that I write, updates, original material, etc.


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